'Eastern Promises' Producer to Get Camerimage Honor

Robert Lantos has produced films by David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan and Bruce Beresford.

Robert Lantos, who produced David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and films by such directors as Atom Egoyan, Bruce Beresford, Istvan Szabo and Denys Arcand, will receive the Camerimage Award for a Producer with Unique Visual Sensitivity, it was announced Thursday.

Budapest-born Lantos, who has lived most of his life in Canada, will be in Bydgoszcz, Poland, for the 24th edition of the Camerimage festival next month, which celebrates the art of cinematography.

Lantos, whose career spans over 40 years, has a reputation for "his faith that cinema can be an art form, created through universal visual language," the festival said, adding, "He has the courage to create the films he wants to make, not the ones he has to."

Lantos made his mark early — his second film production in 1978 was George Kaczender's adaptation of Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women. He later executive produced Cronenberg's Crash and the futuristic virtual reality fantasy eXistenZ. Other notable films include Szabo's Sunshine, starring Ralph Fiennes, and Cronenberg's 2007 Oscar-nominated Eastern Promises.

Lantos has most frequently worked with Egoyan, with whom he has made seven films, including the erotically charged Exotica and the Armenian-Canadian director's latest film, holocaust revenge drama Remember.

Camerimage also will honor the work of Skyfall and Spectre production designer Dennis Gassner. Other prominent films from his career include Peter Weir's The Truman Show and Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition. Gassner is currently working with cinematographer Roger Deakins on Denis Villeneuve's follow-up to Blade Runner.